


What Lies Within

by alba17



Category: Being Human
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-14
Updated: 2010-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:07:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alba17/pseuds/alba17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For prompt "Nina/George facing the 'wolf' id entering their day-to-day relationship."</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Lies Within

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place between S1 and S2. Thanks to lefaym for the speedy beta. Written as part of the Being Human Ficathon on LiveJournal.

It was always something ordinary. Just an everyday thing would set her off unexpectedly. The smallest, most mundane of tasks could be a trap lying in wait, flooding her with new and alarmingly extreme sensations.

The first time it happened, she was grocery shopping. George had asked her to go. They had no food at home and he wanted to make beef stew. She had been trudging through her days in a fog, encased in a shroud of despair, feeling lost, without any sort of map to the future. Everything she'd felt certain of in life had been pulled out from under her. The man she thought she loved had turned out to be a monster; a man capable of killing, apparently without remorse. His best friends were a vampire and a ghost.

She'd seen it with her own eyes, staring unblinkingly through the eyehole in that hospital dungeon, transfixed by the horror before her. Now she had to come to terms with it. It was almost too much to bear.

And then there were those scars on her arm, livid and red.

But they still needed to eat, despite her complete disinterest. When she didn't respond to his request that she go to the market, George lifted her chin and looked her in the eye. "Please. For me. Go out. It will do you good." He caressed her chin with his thumb and she looked in his clear, innocent-looking blue eyes, wanting to lean her head into his hand, to let everything go just for a moment. She wanted to so much. But then she saw him again as that _thing_, heard his otherworldly grunts and cries, the way he'd crouched over that vampire, his prey, and she just couldn't. She jerked her eyes away and rushed out of the room, calling back, "Okay, I'm going!" petulant as a teenager.

The colours of the market seemed garish and overwrought, everything lit too brightly, the rows of cans and boxes with their sales pitches and litany of ingredients a reminder of everything she'd lost: the ability to do normal errands like everyone else, to worry about sodium content and high fructose corn syrup, whether pasta was two for one this week. A small child almost rammed a grocery cart into her and she gasped at his raucous laughter, the mother shushing him and apologizing, rushing away in a tizzy of exasperated tutting. Nina had to lean against the shelf, momentarily confused about why she was there and what she was doing.

When she noticed she was in the dog food section, she considered buying some for George as a joke. Probably wouldn't go over very well though.

Glancing at the list George had given her, she got it together enough to locate the meat section; all the shiny plastic-wrapped packages, red, tan, and brown. Animal parts. Dead. Too bad.

She paused.

She focused again on her task, checking the list. Beef – two pounds, cubed. She saw roasts, big and unwieldy; chopped meat, obviously not right; pre-formed patties, no. She sighed. She never cooked for herself, had no idea what she was doing. Okay, she could do this, she thought, squaring her shoulders. She was a competent professional.  
Her gaze roamed over the meat and it struck her again, how it was all parts of dead animals. She could see it now, the slow gait of the cow as it munched on grass, tail twitching at flies, the bunching of muscles in its haunches as it ambled along. She could smell it, rich and full of life, could feel the rough scratch of its fur - _under her claws_ – the fresh scent of blood as it bloomed on the skin; the moaning as the animal fell to the ground – _her fangs buried in its neck _-

"Miss!" She came to with a sharp inhale of breath, suddenly aware of her surroundings. A man wrapped in a butcher's apron was speaking to her. The Captain and Tennille crooned loudly about how love would keep us together. "Do you need help?"

_Oh my god._ She quickly gathered her wits and told the butcher what she was looking for and he pointed out the appropriate package.

_Jesus._ She took two and moved on to the produce. Carrots next. Surely that was safe. She tried not to think too much about what it meant. Probably low blood sugar; she just needed to eat.

~~~

The second time it happened, the morning had been more busy than usual. On top of that, Nina was behind on her paperwork and her buffoon of a supervisor had been after her about it. Complete wanker, that one. Couldn't she see Nina was busy _saving people's lives?_

Now Mrs. Penhune with the gall bladder was trying to tell her about the latest diet fad she'd seen on Lorraine Kelly and demanding that the hospital provide her with grapefruit every meal, and then Nina's pager was going off, and her supervisor passed by in the hallway, pointing at her watch while lifting an eyebrow. Jesus fucking Christ, would the woman not leave her alone? All of them, couldn't they just leave her alone to do her job?

_Nina lunged and Mrs. Penhune's neck was sliced in two, skin gaping open and spewing blood and her legs were splayed between the bed and the floor, one knee at an unnatural angle, and Nina felt a surge of exaltation at the sound of her screams._

"Fuck! Fucking hell!" Nina stammered, spinning on her heel and practically running out of the room. The corridor was full of people, but they were just dark silhouettes in her way. She was completely focused on getting out of there now, as quickly as possible. She didn't stop until she was outside, under the blue sky, breathing in great gulps of air, shaking and sweating.

_Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god._

She scrabbled for the pack of cigarettes in her pocket, taking three tries to shake one out, then sucking on it greedily, the soothing smoke providing a veneer of calm over her panic.

She almost left right there and then, but she had several more hours of her shift. She couldn't chuck an entire lifetime of training just because she was falling apart.

As soon as she finished her cigarette, she found a restroom and pulled up her sleeve. The marks were still there, red and angry as a brand on her skin. She touched one gingerly, wondering.

  
~~~

The third time was the day before the full moon. Nina felt on edge. George hadn't said anything to her about the full moon. Every time she tried to broach the subject, he shut her down, insisting she didn't need to worry about that, he had it all taken care of. She wasn't reassured.

She dodged a passing gurney and a couple of doctors rushing past. She glanced at her watch – two more hours left of her shift. Rubbing her eyes and blowing out a breath, she headed toward her next patient's room.

"Hey." Someone caught her arm, and she looked up to see a familiar figure in light blue. George's eyes were kind but wary.

"Oh, it's you." Nina sighed, feeling awkward. Despite everything, his touch still made her heart race. She made a movement to get past him, not really wanting to deal with him right now.

But he blocked her path. "Hold on, hold on, don't you have a minute?"

She cocked her eyebrow at him. No, she really didn't. He gave her that little smirk of his, that sneaky one that always melted her defences. She slumped slightly. "What? What is it?" she said with a patient tone.

His eyes skittered away and his lips parted. "I just..." His mouth closed on his words. "I don't know, I just..." He huffed and pulled her to the side of the corridor, leaning in closely. His hand gripped her arm with a kind of desperation.

She searched his face. "Yeah? What is it?"

He rubbed up and down her arm, then he pulled her hips into his. "I need you," he said low into her ear. Her breath caught in her throat, and she was about to laugh, out of surprise or fear, she wasn't sure what, when he nipped at her earlobe with a touch of roughness, the softest of growls rumbling deep in his throat.

She knew then she was a goner. The bustle of the hallway fell away as he licked down her neck and bit into it. This time his growl was louder and his hips canted forward; a wave of heat rolled over her, a throbbing beginning between her legs. Suddenly she had a sharp, aching need to have him inside of her, for him to pound into her relentlessly. She could feel her knickers getting moist and warm.

_Coarse fur rubbed up and down her back as she pushed up into it, wanting more; teeth, yellow and dangerous, pinched the back of her neck as she writhed; harsh breath blew hot and fetid over her ear._

She grabbed his hips, wanting, frantic, grinding out his name between clenched jaws. "George." His lips pressed against her cheek and he dragged his tongue down her face, as if licking it clean. She felt herself growing faint. "George," she hissed. "Not here." She pushed him down the hallway and hustled him into an empty storage room.

"Jesus, George." She pulled at the fastening of his trousers, every fibre of her being focused on the hard length tenting his scrubs. "Fuck me. Now!" He smirked, and then grew intent, his lips curling into a snarl as he scrabbled for the waistband of her trousers. Within seconds, he was inside her, shoving her up against the wall as she grabbed a metal shelf for support. She was slick already, so he slid right in, and they both gasped as he sank in up to the hilt, bracing his hands on the wall. Immediately, he began frantically pumping as she worked her insides to _feel more of him, now._

It was all over way too fast, leaving Nina shaking and panting, overwhelmed by the intensity of it. It was so much more than anything she'd ever experienced before.

"Oh my God," George breathed, leaning against her.

"Yeah." She felt something wet against her cheek. Jesus, his earlobe was dripping blood. She must have ripped it with her teeth. "You're bleeding. Oh God, I'm sorry." She leaned her head back on the wall and looked up at the ceiling, horrified.

"Sssh, sssh, it's all right." He caressed her hair and kissed her gently on the mouth. "It's kind of sexy, you all rough." He grinned lopsidedly at her.

She sighed, shivering, unable to quell that niggling fear in her belly. "Okay." She stared at the trickle of blood, and on a sudden impulse, she licked it. It tasted metallic and viscous. She thought of Mitchell.

Then she looked around the storage room. Several items had fallen off the shelf when she pulled on it during their frenzy. Their trousers were down around their ankles and she felt come dripping down the inside of her thigh. She remembered tomorrow was the full moon and clung to George's shoulders, shaking slightly, thinking of the odd feelings, the scars. He didn't know about those and she wasn't going to tell him. But she wanted some kind of reassurance. "What are we going to do?"

George pulled her tightly into an embrace and she hid her face in his chest, comforted by his solid warmth. "We'll get through it. We've got each other, and Mitchell and Annie."

"Hmmm," she said vaguely. Somehow she didn't feel any better.

The skin on her arm prickled. She burrowed further into George, closing her eyes, and the moon bloomed bright beneath her eyelids, inching its way to fullness, as the second hand on her watch quietly tick-tocked into her ear.


End file.
